Guru Meditation Error & Magnetic Interference (EMI/RFI)

[combaindeft]

@Paul-Thornton @crumble @Martinnn

So, we did some more tests .... wrote the following test code (see below)

Loaded it up on our FiPy+PyTrack ... and drove around the town (Veberöd, in the South of Sweden...) ...

We can Conclude

• It's not the High Power Lines at all! ... as we followed it and drove very close to it at multiple locations ... and none other place had the issue.

• We drove around more, and found more places that the Guru Meditation Error-loop happens. *YAY-US...* ... we have found more locations.

• After driving around, a lot more, we started to see a pattern ... and that it has to be something underground that generates some sort of EMF/EMI/RFI ...
  Note: In Sweden almost 99,9% of all cables & stuff, are put underground

• If, I put my hand around the case (the plastic-box the FiPy ships in) .... in other words ... Shield it ... in an affected area ... it code runs as it was supposed to do. Take my hand of, again, and it Errors ...

• Further more, I saw on the bus home, that in Dalby (15km away) it happened to at a certain place ... so it's Not-One-City-Only... issue ... Mabye? somebody else in the community can upload the debug-code (see below)? ... and test at their location? ... (You will NOTICE: As the colors will stop changing ... or changing different time patterns ... or that it suddenly runs through one Loop ... and then Stop ... and a long while later, it Runs again ... so forth and so on ...)

Will Test Soon

• To run a "FiPy+PyTrack" vs "FiPy+PySense" combo next to each other ... and validate that it's only the "FiPy+PyTrack" that has the issue(s).

Code: boot_debug_Lights.py

print('DEBUG :: @Import')

import machine
import time
import pycom

print('DEBUG :: @Defining Colors')
# Colors
off = 0x000000
gray = 0x121212
white = 0xffffff
red = 0xff0000
green = 0x00ff00
blue = 0x0000ff
purple = 0x800080
orange = 0xFFA500
# DEft Colors
dTorq = 0x00CED1
dPink = 0xFF1493
dRed = 0xFF4500
dMag = 0xFF00FF
dViol = 0x9400D3
dLime = 0x32CD32
dOlive = 0x808000
dTeal = 0x008080
dCyan = 0x00FFFF
dBrown = 0xA52A2A
dChoco = 0xD2691E
dAzure = 0xF0FFFF
dSgray = 0x708090

print('DEBUG :: @Setting up RainBow')
RainBow = [gray, white, red, green, blue, purple, orange, dTorq, dPink, dRed, dMag, dViol, dLime, dOlive, dTeal, dCyan, dBrown, dChoco, dAzure, dSgray]

print('DEBUG :: @HeartBeat OFF')
pycom.heartbeat(False)

print('DEBUG :: @Vars')
RUN = True
i = 0
j = 0 

print('DEBUG :: @Running RainDow Lights Show')
while RUN:
        pycom.rgbled(RainBow[i])
        time.sleep_ms(150)
        i = i + 1
        if i == 20:
                i = 0
                j = j + 1                
                print('DEBUG :: @Loop: ' + str(j))

[robert-hh]

@combaindeft YES! That could be the proof for earth rays, long sought by esotarian people!

[combaindeft]

@robert-hh said in Guru Meditation Error & Magnetic Interference (EMI/RFI):

@combaindeft YES! That could be the proof for earth rays, long sought by esotarian people!

HaHa 😇

But NOT! ... more like they didn't put good shielding around the things they put underground .... and yes ... it only follows the road(s) that are paved / have put something along underground ...

and, @robert-hh ... having looked more into the Error code in the Core-Dump ... it's looks like there are places in the Firmware code one needs to add Try-Catch(es) ...

Since, say after 12-20 reboots & core dumps ... it does actually run the code once to the end (last line) and then reboots 12-20 times ... and runs once again ... so forth and so on ...

[Martinnn]

@combaindeft Very interesting. In my case, the proposed correlation between USB cable and gurus did not hold. It more seems that some devices crash more regularly than others.
Maybe you should make yourself a pair of divining rods. This can be a very enlightening experience, particularly for a science-believing engineer (not joking)!
Do you have a spectrum analyzer? I'd suggest using it together with some near field probes (E and H field) when driving around.

[crumble]

@robert-hh said in Guru Meditation Error & Magnetic Interference (EMI/RFI):

@combaindeft YES! That could be the proof for earth rays, long sought by esotarian people!

Or a good place to dig for gold. @combaindeft you can easily test if it an expensive metal. Switch the GPS antennawit a plug and an active antenna. Shield the device and tell us the result. It will be only copper when it works, so you share the result ;)

[Paul Thornton]

@combaindeft I should be at my local hackspace this weekend at somepoint. Ill give your test script a run then. That place has enough RF/EMF noise that all laptop trackpads die when entering the building and refuse to work untill we leave (You try debugging that one in the room full of random hardware...)

That said. I've run a ton of Pycom boards there in the past without major issue.

[combaindeft]

@paul-thornton

Any results? :-)

@crumble, @Martinnn, @Paul-Thornton:

So we ran both PySense+FiPY & PyTrack+FiPy devices side by side (in the car, on the dashboard), no usb, both running same "boot_debug_Lights.py" script.

Our findings:

• Both had issues :-(
• The PySense seamed to bit a bit less vunerable and ran a little better ... but it it failed.

[Paul Thornton]

@combaindeft said in Guru Meditation Error & Magnetic Interference (EMI/RFI):

@paul-thornton

Any results? :-)

@crumble, @Martinnn, @Paul-Thornton:

So we ran both PySense+FiPY & PyTrack+FiPy devices side by side (in the car, on the dashboard), no usb, both running same "boot_debug_Lights.py" script.

Our findings:

• Both had issues :-(
• The PySense seamed to bit a bit less vunerable and ran a little better ... but it it failed.

Sadly no results (they worked fine). Will mention this issue again in tomorrows standup.

[combaindeft]

@paul-thornton

Here is a video you can show them:
Direkt download Link
InDirekt Link

Would it be possible for you to send us one of your devices that worked in your "test area"? ... so we can field test them in our "Area"? (and we'll send it back ASAP...)

So we can exclude if it's something between different HW Devices or not.

[johand]

@combaindeft
Have you found a soultion for this issue? I have the same problem (also in Sweden) with a W01 on a custom board. Have found a couple of places where this happens everytime passing with a car. This is on the country side, there could be smaller power lines under ground (power lines feeding a few houses, nothing big).

[johand]

Seems like this is related to WIFI in some way. When turning off WIFI (pycom.wifi_on_boot(False)) problem goes away. I am not using WIFI in any way, but maybe powerlines or WIFI accesspoint makes my W01 panic?

This is the application I have been running during the test:

from machine import Pin
import utime

LED.append(Pin('P3', mode=Pin.OUT))

while True:
    LED.value(1)
    utime.sleep_ms(100)
    LED.value(0)
    utime.sleep_ms(100)

I havent been able to decode the core dumps, can I send them to someone for investigation? This forum didn´t allow me to post it here.